Exhibit: Illustration Jump Page

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Animation Resources isn’t just an archive OF animation… it’s an archive FOR animators. There’s a subtle but important distinction there… One of the aspects of modern animation that could stand improvement is design. Too many current animated films ignore the importance of appealing design, or lean too heavily on the designs of other animated films. There’s absolutely no reason why every princess, king or mouse should look like princesses, kings and mice from previous films. There’s a wide world of design inspiration to be found in the history of illustration. Here’s just a sampling of the important material related to illustration contained in the Animation Resources Database…

One of the primary projects of Animation Resources is to gather together the reference materials that inspired the artists who made animated cartoons in the golden age. It’s a little known fact that every animation studio had a library of children’s books for the reference of the background painters and designers. Rare editions of Rackham, Dulac and Wyeth sat on the shelves at studios in both New York and in Hollywood. Many great children’s book illustrators worked for a time in animation, including Kay Nielsen, Gustaf Tenggren and Willy Pogany.

From the 1920s through the late 1950s, magazines featured the work of some of the top talents in the art world. Leindecker, Artzybasheff, Szyk and Hurst were all great artists whose work has a lot to offer today’s cartoonists and character designers. Thanks to Archive Supporters Mike Fontanelli and Kent Butterworth, we have been able to bring many of these great names to your attention.

Thanks to a generous donation by Animation Resources supporter John Kricfalusi, we are able to share the beautiful work of the great artists who made a fortune for Western Publishing’s Little Golden Book line. The style was created by Disney concept artist, Gustaf Tenggren and reached its peak in books by Mel Crawford. Many animation artists moonlighted as children’s book illustrators… among them Norm McCabe, Harvey Eisenberg, Mary Blair and J. P. Miller.

Animation Resources in association with Imagekind is proud to present a collection of fine art prints representing some of Kay Nielsen’s greatest work- illustrations from the classic book, East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Produced on demand from high resolution archival scans, these prints are carefully color corrected for maximum image quality and fidelity to the original book. Visit the Kay Nielsen Gallery at Imagekind to see all the available images.

I would like to thank the membership of The International Animated Film Society: ASIFA-Hollywood for sponsoring my efforts to get this project off the ground during its first few years. In particular, I owe a debt of gratitude to ASIFA-Hollywood's president, Antran Manoogian. Without his unwavering support and valuable guidance this project would not exist. -Stephen Worth